REIMAGINED CLASSICS

When Singer turned its attention to the air-cooled Porsche 911 in 2009, the premise was deceptively simple: what might this already iconic sports car become if every element were reconsidered without losing the qualities that made it special?

That question helped establish an entirely new benchmark for the reimagined classic.

Founded in California by Rob Dickinson, Singer works in collaboration with owners to restore and reimagine their air-cooled Porsche 911s. The original Classic services established the company's reputation, while subsequent programmes including Dynamics & Lightweighting Study (DLS), Classic Turbo and DLS Turbo have progressively explored different aspects of the 911's road and competition heritage.

Across them all runs the philosophy Singer describes simply as a relentless pursuit of excellence. Design, engineering, material science and craftsmanship are treated not as separate disciplines, but as parts of a single idea.

Everything earns its place

Singer's work is often recognised first for its appearance, but the detail beneath the surface is equally important.

The company takes the owner's Porsche as the starting point for a highly personalised restoration. Carbon fibre, advanced engine development, lightweight materials and contemporary chassis engineering can sit alongside traditional leatherwork, intricate instrumentation and details developed specifically for an individual commission.

Yet there is rarely a sense that technology has been added simply because it is available.

Singer's own mantra — “Everything is Important” — perhaps explains the approach most succinctly. The smallest control, surface or mechanical component receives consideration because the experience of the complete car is ultimately determined by thousands of such decisions.

This philosophy becomes particularly apparent in DLS.

Created to explore the capabilities of the naturally aspirated air-cooled 911 using knowledge influenced by Formula 1, DLS pushed Singer into areas of advanced lightweighting, aerodynamics and high-performance engine development while retaining the analogue relationship between driver and machine.

The later DLS Turbo services take that thinking further. Based around the owner's Type 964, the programme celebrates Porsche's turbocharged competition history with a 3.8-litre twin-turbocharged flat-six, carbon-fibre bodywork and extensively developed chassis technology. The first completed DLS Turbo commission delivered to its owner in 2026 produces 710 hp while retaining a six-speed manual transmission and rear-wheel drive.

The numbers are extraordinary. The intent behind them is more interesting.

Different answers to the same question

There is no single definition of the ultimate air-cooled 911, and Singer has increasingly embraced that fact.

Classic services established the idea of optimising the familiar naturally aspirated 911 for an individual owner. DLS investigated how far lightness and naturally aspirated performance could be developed. Classic Turbo turned towards the 911 Turbo's grand-touring and sporting character, while DLS Turbo looked to the formidable 934/5 endurance racers for inspiration.

More recent Carrera Coupe and Cabriolet services continue that exploration, revisiting another chapter of the 911's history through Singer's contemporary perspective.

These are not simply different specifications of the same product. Each programme examines a different characteristic within the 911's unusually rich history.

Personalisation then creates another layer.

Colour, materials, interior treatment and dynamic character can be developed in collaboration with the owner, meaning two cars emerging from the same programme need not express the same personality. Singer describes this approach as luxury through choice — tailoring what bears its name around the owner's personal vision.

The pursuit of a definitive 911

Singer's influence reaches beyond the cars it has restored.

Its work helped demonstrate that preserving an iconic design does not necessarily mean freezing it at a particular moment in history. A significant car can instead provide the foundation for a deeper exploration of what made the original compelling.

The difficult part is knowing when to stop.

Add too much refinement and the immediacy of an air-cooled 911 begins to disappear. Pursue performance without restraint and the delicacy that defines the car can be overwhelmed. Change the design too aggressively and familiarity gives way to reinvention.

Singer's work occupies that narrow territory between reverence and progression.

Modern engineering provides capability that Porsche's original designers could not have accessed, but the ultimate measure remains emotional rather than numerical: the way the car looks, sounds, responds and makes its owner want to drive it.

More than fifteen years after Singer first turned its attention to the air-cooled 911, that philosophy continues to evolve through increasingly ambitious programmes.

The pursuit may change. The subject remains unmistakable.

It is Singer's ability to combine iconic design, extraordinary craftsmanship, advanced engineering and deeply individual specification while preserving the essential character of the air-cooled 911 that makes the company a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

Singer Vehicle Design
California, USA | United Kingdom

RUF occupies an unusual place in the sports-car world. Its cars are instantly familiar in silhouette, yet the company behind them has spent decades developing an engineering identity very much of its own.

The story began in 1939, when Alois Ruf Sr. established the family business in Pfaffenhausen, Bavaria. What followed gradually evolved from servicing and engineering into the construction of high-performance automobiles, with RUF becoming recognised as a manufacturer in its own right. Today, the company remains family owned, with Alois and Estonia Ruf continuing a name associated with automotive engineering for more than 80 years.

One car transformed the way the wider world regarded RUF.

The CTR, introduced in 1987 and immortalised as the Yellowbird, produced 469 PS and reached 339.8 km/h during testing at Ehra-Lessien. Its combination of extraordinary speed, compact proportions and understated appearance established a reputation that extended far beyond Germany.

But the Yellowbird is perhaps more interesting as the beginning of a philosophy than simply as a record-setting car.

Engineering the RUF way

For many years, RUF's work began with Porsche architecture before being comprehensively developed in Pfaffenhausen. Engines, turbocharging, transmissions, suspension, brakes and aerodynamics could all be reconsidered, creating cars whose restrained appearance often gave little indication of the engineering beneath them.

The relationship with Porsche remains an important part of RUF's history, but describing the company simply as a Porsche modifier no longer reflects what happens in Pfaffenhausen.

The CTR Anniversary demonstrated just how far RUF had evolved. Its carbon-fibre monocoque was developed entirely by the company, creating the structural foundation for a car conceived and manufactured by RUF itself. A 3.6-litre twin-turbo flat-six produces 710 hp, paired with a seven-speed manual transmission, while double-wishbone suspension with pushrod-operated dampers marks a significant departure from the architecture associated with the company's earlier cars.

The SCR offers another interpretation. Its naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six produces 510 hp, again within RUF's carbon monocoque, but the emphasis falls as much on low weight and response as outright performance.

Then there is the Rodeo.

Raised ground clearance, all-wheel drive and specialised suspension take the same underlying engineering philosophy into very different territory, demonstrating that RUF is increasingly able to explore ideas without being constrained by the architecture that originally established its reputation.

Analogue thinking in a digital age

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of contemporary RUF is not how much the cars have changed, but what the company has chosen to retain.

Modern performance cars have become extraordinarily capable, yet much of that capability increasingly arrives through automated transmissions, extensive electronic intervention and complex digital interfaces.

RUF has largely travelled in another direction.

Manual gearboxes remain central to cars such as the CTR Anniversary and SCR. Analogue instruments appear where digital displays could easily have taken their place. Weight is treated as something to control rather than simply overcome with additional power.

None of this means the engineering itself is traditional.

Carbon-fibre monocoques, sophisticated suspension, composite bodywork and highly developed engines are thoroughly contemporary. It is the relationship between those technologies and the driver that remains deliberately direct.

That connection extends back to the Yellowbird. Its reputation was created not only by the speed it achieved, but by the intensity of the experience required to access it. Today's cars are vastly more sophisticated, yet RUF continues to place the driver at the centre of the machinery.

An independent path

RUF's progression from a family workshop into an independent automobile manufacturer is one of the more unusual stories in the performance-car world.

Its history remains inseparable from Porsche, and there is no attempt to disguise that influence. But the ability to design and manufacture its own carbon chassis, develop complete vehicles and pursue projects as different as the CTR Anniversary, SCR and Rodeo has given the company an increasingly distinct identity.

What remains consistent is the thinking behind them.

Compact dimensions, low weight, substantial performance and mechanical involvement have survived successive generations of RUF cars, even as the technology used to achieve them has changed completely.

More than eight decades after the family business began in Pfaffenhausen, RUF is no longer simply developing someone else's sports car. It is using the knowledge accumulated from decades of doing so to create automobiles around its own engineering.

It is this combination of independent thinking, advanced engineering and an enduring commitment to driver involvement that makes RUF Automobile a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

RUF Automobile GmbH
Pfaffenhausen, Germany
+49 8265 911 911

The Lotus Esprit has always been a car defined as much by ideas as outright performance. Giugiaro's original wedge was dramatic, but beneath it sat the principles that had shaped Lotus for decades: low weight, efficiency and engineering ingenuity.

Half a century after the Esprit made its debut at the 1975 Paris Motor Show, Encor has chosen that philosophy as the starting point for something new.

The British company's first project, the Encor Series 1, takes the later Lotus Esprit V8 and transforms it into a contemporary interpretation inspired by the purity of the original Series 1. Production is limited to just 50 cars.

Encor deliberately describes the process as remastering. It is an important distinction. The objective is not to modernise every aspect of the Esprit simply because technology allows it, but to consider how the car might have evolved if its original principles could be explored using materials and engineering unavailable to Lotus in the 1970s.

Starting with the shape

Few automotive designs leave less room for intervention than the original Esprit.

Its proportions are extraordinarily simple: a low nose, sharply defined surfaces, an uninterrupted waistline and a cabin seemingly drawn with a ruler. Add too much and the clarity disappears.

Encor's Design Director Daniel Durrant, whose career includes 14 years at Lotus and work on the Emira and Evija Fittipaldi Edition, has approached the Series 1 with that constraint very much in mind.

The familiar wedge remains immediately recognisable, but its surfaces and stance have been reconsidered rather than simply reproduced.

Carbon fibre plays a major role. Encor uses contemporary composite construction to recreate and refine the Esprit's body while increasing precision and reducing unnecessary mass. More significantly, the project incorporates an advanced carbon-fibre monocoque to increase structural rigidity and sharpen the car's responses.

Inside, the same restraint applies. The original Esprit's distinctive wraparound architecture and T-shaped dashboard provide the visual reference, now interpreted through leather, Alcantara and machined aluminium.

Modernity is present, but intentionally discreet. Digital instrumentation, Apple CarPlay, climate control, heated seats and 360-degree cameras introduce the usability expected of a contemporary GT without turning the cabin into a conventional modern-car interior.

Engineering the car underneath

The Esprit's appearance may provide the immediate connection with 1975, but the engineering beneath it determines whether the idea works beyond the studio.

Encor's team brings together experience from Lotus, Aston Martin, MIRA, Tickford and specialist vehicle engineering. Rather than attempting to manufacture every component itself, the company works with established technical partners where appropriate.

AP Racing contributes braking expertise, Bilstein and Eibach are involved in suspension, Quaife in drivetrain engineering and KS Composites in advanced composite manufacture.

The decision to base the project around the later V8 Esprit is equally significant.

It gives Encor a fundamentally different mechanical starting point from the four-cylinder Series 1 that inspires the design. The challenge therefore becomes one of translation rather than recreation: retaining the lightness, immediacy and compact character associated with the early Esprit while exploiting the performance potential of the later car.

This is where projects of this kind are ultimately judged.

Power can be increased and chassis responses sharpened relatively easily. Preserving delicacy while doing so is considerably harder.

The timing of Encor's arrival is interesting.

Re-engineered classics have become an established part of the collector-car world, yet relatively few have explored the Lotus Esprit. Porsche 911s, classic Land Rovers and several Italian icons have inspired numerous interpretations; Giugiaro's wedge has remained comparatively untouched.

Perhaps that is because the Esprit presents a different challenge.

Lotus built its reputation around achieving more with less. Adding complexity, weight and technology indiscriminately would therefore contradict much of what made the original interesting.

Encor's Series 1 instead asks what more with less might mean today.

Carbon composites replace materials dictated by 1970s manufacturing. Modern chassis technology can provide greater precision. Contemporary electronics make the car easier to live with, while new manufacturing methods allow details to be produced to standards that would have been difficult to achieve when the original entered production.

Yet none of those developments matters if the result stops feeling like an Esprit.

That tension between preservation and progress is what makes the project interesting. Encor is not attempting to recreate 1975, nor is it trying to disguise the Esprit beneath an entirely new identity.

It is taking one of Britain's most recognisable sports cars and asking how its original thinking might be expressed fifty years later.

For Encor, the challenge is therefore not simply rebuilding an icon. It is preserving the idea that created it while giving that idea another opportunity to evolve — and that is what makes Encor a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

Encor
United Kingdom

Some competition cars are remembered for what they won. Others leave an impression powerful enough to define an entire period of motorsport. The Lancia 037 belongs firmly in both camps.

For Kimera Automobili, that history provides a starting point rather than a boundary.

Based in Cuneo, Italy, the company creates highly exclusive, hand-built motor cars inspired by the legendary 037 and the extraordinary rallying era from which it emerged. Yet these are not conventional recreations. Kimera takes the philosophy, proportions and analogue character of the original and reinterprets them through contemporary engineering, advanced materials and meticulous Italian craftsmanship.

The result is something deliberately difficult to categorise: unmistakably connected to one of rallying's great icons, yet engineered as a modern performance car in its own right.

Analogue by intention

Modern performance has become increasingly defined by electronics, automation and layers of technology separating the driver from the machinery beneath.

Kimera takes a different view.

Its cars are conceived around the idea that involvement itself is part of performance. Steering response, mechanical feedback, sound, weight and the relationship between driver, engine and chassis are treated as fundamental characteristics rather than nostalgic side effects.

The original 037 provides an extraordinary reference point. Mid-engined, lightweight and created specifically for competition, it represented an era when the physical relationship between driver and car was exceptionally direct.

Capturing that sensation in a contemporary machine does not mean simply reproducing 1980s engineering.

Kimera uses modern chassis development, lightweight construction and advanced materials — including extensive carbon fibre — to create a platform capable of delivering considerably greater performance while retaining an intentionally analogue personality.

This balance is critical. Modern engineering is present throughout the car, but its purpose is to sharpen the experience rather than sanitise it.

The technology works in support of the driver.

Evolution rather than recreation

The distinction between recreation and reinterpretation is central to understanding Kimera.

A faithful recreation attempts to reproduce history. Kimera instead asks how that history might have evolved.

The familiar visual language of the 037 remains immediately apparent, but proportions, aerodynamics, structure and mechanical systems are reconsidered around contemporary capabilities. Individual details reference the competition car without forcing the finished machine to remain constrained by technology from four decades ago.

The same philosophy extends beneath the bodywork.

Performance, suspension, braking, cooling and structural engineering are developed as part of a cohesive modern package rather than a collection of upgrades applied to an old car. Lightweight materials reduce mass where appropriate, while bespoke components allow the engineering to be tailored around the intended character of the finished machine.

Low-volume production also gives Kimera the freedom to approach each car differently from a conventional manufacturer.

Cars are hand-built and extensively personalised, allowing colour, materials, detailing and specification to reflect the individual owner while retaining the identity of the underlying design.

This is craftsmanship applied not to restoring the past, but to continuing its development.

Keeping the emotion

The most interesting aspect of Kimera Automobili is perhaps that its cars are not really about nostalgia.

The 037 provides the inspiration, but the objective is not simply to recreate the experience of driving a historic rally car on a modern road. Instead, Kimera takes the qualities enthusiasts remember from that period — lightness, mechanical interaction, drama and a sense that the driver is genuinely responsible for what happens next — and asks whether they can survive within a contemporary performance car.

That philosophy has allowed the company to develop an identity extending beyond a single reinterpretation, exploring increasingly ambitious evolutions of the same rally-bred thinking.

In an automotive world where outright performance has become remarkably accessible, Kimera's approach suggests that how a car delivers its performance can be considerably more important than the numbers themselves.

The noise, vibration, steering feedback and mechanical involvement that modern engineering often seeks to remove are instead treated as essential parts of the experience.

Kimera Automobili therefore occupies an intriguing position between past and present. Its cars celebrate rally history without being confined by it, using modern engineering not to replace the analogue experience but to intensify it.

It is this fusion of competition heritage, contemporary engineering and uncompromising driver involvement that makes Kimera Automobili a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

Kimera Automobili
Cuneo, Italy
+39 171 500 801

The great Italian Gran Turismo cars have always been about more than performance. Proportion, sound, craftsmanship and the sensation delivered from behind the wheel matter just as much as outright speed.

Totem Automobili takes those qualities and explores how they might exist in a motor car created for today.

Born in Italy, the company produces highly individual, low-volume machines that draw inspiration from the country's automotive past without attempting simply to reproduce it. Familiar design influences are combined with carbon-fibre construction, contemporary chassis engineering and meticulously crafted interiors to create cars that retain an unmistakably Italian identity while offering an entirely different level of performance.

Although frequently described within the restomod world, Totem's approach goes considerably further. The extent of its engineering and construction means the finished cars increasingly occupy the territory of bespoke, handcrafted modern classics — machines informed by history rather than constrained by it.

Starting again beneath the surface

The visual connection with classic Italian design may be immediate, but beneath the bodywork Totem takes a far more radical approach.

Central to the company's philosophy is lightweight construction, including the use of a purpose-developed carbon-fibre monocoque. Rather than simply strengthening or modifying an ageing original structure, this provides a contemporary foundation around which the rest of the motor car can be engineered.

That decision changes what becomes possible.

Suspension geometry, structural rigidity, weight distribution and overall vehicle dynamics can be developed as part of a cohesive package rather than adapted around compromises inherited from a car designed generations earlier.

Performance is treated in much the same way.

Modern powertrain and chassis technology provide capabilities far beyond those available during the golden era of Italian sports cars, but outright numbers are only part of the objective. Totem places equal emphasis on response, involvement and the sensation of controlling the car.

The engineering may be contemporary; the desired relationship between driver and machine remains deliberately analogue.

Crafted around the individual

Low-volume production gives Totem another freedom that mass manufacture cannot easily provide.

Each commission can become an expression of its owner.

Exterior colour, materials, interior finishes and numerous individual details can be developed around a particular brief, turning specification into something closer to a collaborative design process.

The interiors demonstrate this particularly well. Traditional Italian craftsmanship and carefully selected materials sit alongside contemporary construction and technology, creating cabins that reference classic Gran Turismo without becoming exercises in nostalgia.

That distinction runs throughout the car.

There is little value in recreating a historic interior perfectly if the engineering beneath it belongs to an entirely different generation. Instead, Totem allows old and new to coexist visibly, using craftsmanship to connect the two.

The same thinking applies externally. Recognisable Italian proportions and details provide familiarity, but surfaces can be sharpened, stance reconsidered and functional elements developed around the requirements of the modern car beneath them.

What emerges is not intended to pass for an untouched classic. It is designed to celebrate where the inspiration came from while being confident about what it has become.

Emotion before numbers

Contemporary performance cars have reached a point where extraordinary speed is almost routine. What is increasingly difficult to manufacture is character.

Totem Automobili's work is particularly interesting because it places that emotional element back at the centre of the engineering brief.

Lightness matters because it changes how a car responds. Sound matters because it contributes to the experience. Steering and chassis feedback matter because the driver should remain involved rather than merely supervising the performance available.

And design matters because an Italian performance car has traditionally been expected to stir emotion before its engine has even started.

This philosophy allows Totem to borrow from the past without becoming dependent upon it. The golden age of Italian Gran Turismo provides the cultural reference, while modern materials and engineering create possibilities that simply did not exist when those original cars were produced.

The resulting machines belong neither completely to the classic world nor to conventional modern supercar territory.

They occupy a space of their own: handcrafted Italian motor cars that use contemporary engineering to pursue an intentionally analogue and emotional driving experience.

It is this fusion of Italian design, advanced lightweight construction, individual craftsmanship and driver-focused engineering that makes Totem Automobili a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

Totem Automobili
Rome, Italy
+39 346 37 99 155

Few periods of motorsport produced road cars quite as closely connected to competition as the great rallying era of the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. Lightweight construction, turbocharging, four-wheel drive and increasingly sophisticated chassis engineering were developed in an environment where performance was measured against the clock and reliability tested on some of the world's most demanding stages.

Maturo Cars has immersed itself in that world.

Based in Uden in the Netherlands, the company applies more than 25 years of motorsport experience to the restoration, redevelopment and competition preparation of historic rally machinery, with particular expertise surrounding the Lancia Delta Integrale.

Its work ranges from historically focused restorations and competition cars to extensively re-engineered road-going interpretations, with the same underlying objective: preserving the intensity and analogue character of the original machinery while using contemporary engineering knowledge to address its limitations.

The result is not simply nostalgia for rallying's past, but an opportunity to experience it properly.

Beneath the Martini stripes

The Lancia Delta Integrale occupies an extraordinary place in rally history.

Its familiar shape disguises just how specialised the competition versions became. Engines, transmissions, differentials, suspension, braking and body structures were developed around the demands of international rallying, creating cars whose apparent simplicity belies considerable engineering complexity.

Understanding that evolution is central to Maturo's work.

A restoration intended to reproduce a significant period competition car demands historical accuracy. A car destined to compete again must add reliability, safety and precise preparation to that equation. A road-going interpretation creates another challenge entirely: deciding which characteristics should remain untouched and where modern engineering can make the car more capable without diluting its personality.

Maturo approaches these projects at component level.

Drivetrain, chassis and suspension development can be reconsidered alongside structural preparation and weight reduction, allowing the finished car to work as a cohesive package rather than a collection of upgraded parts.

The philosophy is particularly evident in the company's re-engineered Delta projects. Greater performance is available, but it is delivered within a car still intended to communicate through its steering, chassis and mechanical systems.

The Integrale's personality remains the reference point.

Competition in its construction

There is an authenticity that comes from developing cars with motorsport in mind.

Historic rally machinery cannot rely on visual theatre alone. Components must withstand vibration, heat, repeated impacts and sustained competition use. A beautifully manufactured part that cannot survive a rally stage has failed regardless of how impressive it appears in the workshop.

Maturo's motorsport background therefore influences both its restoration and redevelopment work.

Group A and Group 4-inspired projects draw upon period competition thinking while modern design and manufacturing techniques allow components to be strengthened, refined or reproduced where necessary.

This approach is not limited exclusively to Lancia. The company's work with machinery such as the Ferrari 308 Group 4 demonstrates a wider fascination with the engineering of historic rally cars and the challenge of making rare competition machinery perform as convincingly today as its appearance suggests it should.

For cars returning to competition, preparation becomes an ongoing process. Development continues through use, with the behaviour of the car providing information that no static restoration can replicate.

It is motorsport engineering in its most traditional sense: build, test, understand and improve.

Preserving the experience, not just the shape

There is a temptation when re-engineering an older performance car to remove every imperfection.

With a rally-derived machine, doing so risks removing much of the reason for wanting one.

The noise, boost, mechanical transmission of information and physical involvement are inseparable from the character of cars such as the Delta Integrale. Modern engineering can improve reliability and precision, but if refinement isolates the driver completely, something fundamental has been lost.

Maturo's most interesting work sits within that balance.

Its cars can benefit from decades of subsequent development in materials, manufacturing and vehicle dynamics while remaining deliberately connected to the period that inspired them. Tailor-made commissions allow that balance to be adjusted around the owner, whether the objective is an authentic competition recreation, a serious historic rally car or an extensively developed machine intended primarily for the road.

These are cars designed to evoke rallying history through the way they behave, not merely through their appearance.

For Maturo Cars, preservation therefore means more than keeping important shapes and liveries alive. It means preserving the mechanical intensity, engineering purpose and driver involvement that made the original competition cars unforgettable.

It is this combination of historic rally knowledge, motorsport-led development and carefully judged modern engineering that makes Maturo Cars a HACCA Trusted Specialist.

Maturo Cars
Uden, Netherlands
+31 06 206 22916